bls

Actually, the problem is that people--even hackers--are too romantic. And the ones that aren't too romantic are often just too scared to really try.

If you are willing to let go of romanticism and fear, you can find algorithms for getting laid by searching Google. I personally know a few people that have implemented those algorithms and they all succeed frequently. I know a guy whose marriage was founded (unknowingly to his wife) on such Google-found advice.

There is a reason "How to Win Friends and Influence People" is one of the best-selling books of all time. Reading just that one book will get most people all the sex and "friends" they want if they follow its advice. I recommend everybody to try it if they are feeling really down on themselves or really frustrated. It can be a life-changing experience.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of downsides to reading an (e-)book about getting laid or making friends too. Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for.

I'm waiting for the free e-ink e-book reader, and e-books that are DRM-free or at least not severely encumbered by DRM. Only then will e-books be viable.

Can't a big publisher come out and subsidize an e-book reader? For example, "Buy some e-books from us whose printed editions would add up to $300, and we'll give you an e-book reader free."

If you like Chipotle, you should find a Pancheros. Pancheros is very similar to Chipotle, but it has much better tortillas, and that makes a huge difference.

AOL has a lot of very popular sites and brands, like Engadget and TMZ. The AOL-branded sites are pretty much worthless, but there is a lot of value there otherwise.

A recommendation for/against a particular designer is worthless without some kind of description of your first-hand experience with the designer. You wouldn't do business with them again? Why not? You loved working with them and the result made you tons of money? Please say so, and provide a link to the result.

Are you basing your recommendation on first-hand experience, second-hand experience, or just general reputation?

The key is the trivial deployment. If a user wants a little app, and he has no server and no hosting provider, and he doesn't know how to install software or configure a shared hosting account anyway, then he is likely to just give up before he even gets started. This at least gives him a chance.

There are a lot of business people that have become programmers by building increasingly sophisticated Excel spreadsheets or Access databases. This type of "casual" programming is becoming increasingly common.

That said, I think that DabbleDB might have a more successful approach--data first, instead of code first. That approach made MS Access very successful. Casual programmers care a lot about their data, but code is just a nuisance that is tolerated to get the data to "work." People want assurance that their data is always there, even when the code is broken. In MS Access it is trivial to back up your database and view/hand-edit your data.

I think it is brilliant.

Client-side Javascript is the QBasic of this decade--it is the first language of a lot of (most?) self-taught programmers. It makes a lot of sense to offer these people a place to expand into server-side software.

And, Server-side Javascript is spiking in popularity and utility. I am working on a project in this space as well.

Wind power works by creating wind resistance. In order for there to be _less_ air resistance with them installed, they would have to be replacing something that caused even more wind resistance. But, that seems unlikely.

It isn't the same amount of fuel. If the car's engine is going to power something else besides the car, it is going to have to work harder.

Imagine the car is running in a vacuum and gets 30MPG. Now, add normal air resistance. It will not get 30MPG anymore. Now, add something else that further increases wind resistance. The car will get even fewer miles per gallon.

What is your objective? If your objective is to help the environment, then this won't work; you are replacing coal/nuclear-generated electricity with gasoline-powered electricity, using a combination of of extremely inefficient mechanisms.

If your goal is to get free electricity by leaching off of cars, without regard to the environment, then it might work. But, there is a huge fixed cost to manufacture, transport, install, and test the machinery, and a non-negligible variable cost in maintaining the system.

I used my tuition money to live overseas for a year, and I just got back. I haven't really run into any problems yet.

I tried to tutor Computer Science while I was an undergraduate. My clients were always people who would call me around finals time and ask me to help them cram. There were seniors who simply could not write computer programs--some might have a vague notion of what a loop is, but not enough to actually write a (trivial) program using one. I often had to stop the tutoring sessions, because I simply could not help them without just doing the homework myself.

I watched many of those people graduate with B.S. degrees in Computer Science from my university. If I ever need to hire a developer, I will actively avoid anybody that graduated from my own university. Once I realized that, I quit.

Having said that, some places have rules that won't allow them to hire you without a degree. If you want to work for these kinds of places, you need the degree. However, I think that a degree requirement is a good indicator of a bad place to work.

The easiest and fasted way to lose at negotiating is to ask "is this negotiable?". When you negotiate, you are supposed to be convincing the other side to give you what you want on the terms you want. If, instead, you come into the negotiation looking powerless, you are going to end up with no deal or--worse--a bad deal.

You get 15 minutes or so to present your idea. One minute of that presentation should be about how much money you need to get started. I would not inflate that number, but I would not artificially constrain it to fit the "fixed" limit that YC has. I can't speak for YC, but I would guess that they aren't going to turn down a deal just because the founders demonstrated a need for $7500 per person instead of $5000 each, or whatever the details are. Similarly, if your idea is the best idea they've ever seen, then are they really going to be so rigid about the percentage? Especially if you offer a percentage before they do?

I realize PG said flat out "no" above. But, doesn't Mr. Graham strike you as somebody that has a "rules are meant to be broken" mentality? Don't you think that this is exactly the type of arbitrary rule that is easily broken without too much fuss?

Have you ever had a serious job with female coworkers? I'm going to guess "no," since your entire post is nonsense.

First, you are referring to informal situations. But, this is (supposed to be) a professional setting, and the rules are much different in a professional setting. Generally, you want to refer to the femininity of women as little as possible in a professional setting, and when you do have to refer to their femininity, you must be extra formal.

Here is the rule I go by: never call a woman a girl in a situation where it would be inappropriate to call her a bitch (she better be a good friend). And, never call a black man a boy because it is almost as bad as "nigger."

If you don't understand the reasoning behind these rules then you should find a good friend to explain them to you very carefully.

You usually shouldn't call them girls in a professional forum unless they are younger than 16. Using a noun as an adjective is also bad form.

/ the more you know

Write yourself a post-it note that says "Don't respond to email when you are drunk" and put it on your monitor (next to your passwords) before you go out.

The ads on the right side of Google's search results are sometimes helpful. But, the search results are being clogged with made-for-AdSense sites. Google's search results would be much better if they closed down AdSense.

Every weblog with AdSense advertising looks better (design wise) with AdBlock+ turned on; there is more negative space and less visual noise.

Every time I notice a relevant ad in my Gmail, it reminds me that I really need to find a way to protect the privacy of my email.

See Microsoft CardSpaces (InfoCard). I don't know if it will catch on but it is very sound technically.

This seems to be like a site that is supposed to appeal to the general public. Aren't you worried that it won't get through the content filters at businesses and schools due to the name? Building your brand around cocaine seems pretty risky.

It seems like you feel that the API and the highly structured organization of the data is what differentiates you from Wikipedia. But, Wikipedia already has huge mindshare, and there are very few people that would ever your added value features. That means advertising is not a viable revenue source. Charging for access is out unless you change the name; who would you pay for something labeled "free"? So, what's the business model?

The people that WOULD need the data to be very structured need to have some assurance that the data is reliable. Usually, somebody who has spent a lot of time and effort to build an accurate data set will want a return on their investment. I could see somebody building a business by aggregating sets of reliable data from reputable data sources (universities, government laboratories, medical journals, etc.), and renting out the data sets to users and/or charging subscription fees. That is what junk mail companies due with mailing lists, for example. But, it is hard to imagine giving it all away for free and still making a living.

The thing about low-cost web hosting is that it is impossible to stop your web host--or their contractors--from getting the data. Even if you use TLS (SSL), the web host and their associates have full access to your private key. For most hosting solutions, the best that you can do is colocating your own physically-locked server, and use TLS to encrypt everything.

Without using TLS, you cannot prevent the user's ISP from recording--and even reselling--your user's search histories. Similarly, your hosting providers could be doing the same thing. Keep in mind that hosting and bandwidth is a multi-level value chain--your host is probably renting space and bandwidth from somebody else, who is renting from somebody else, who is renting from somebody else. Any one of those companies and/or their rogue employees can collect, re-transmit, prevent, and/or redirect (e.g. man-in-the-middle) your user's queries without your knowledge.

Instead of giving our private information to Google to use for 18 months, we are giving it to you to use indefinitely?

Where is your privacy policy?

And, what is your hosting provider's policy? I found out recently that my hosting provider refused to make any guarantees; that means that I cannot make any guarantees either, since my hosting provider has full access to my server.

I understand what you mean. But, who is going to be entering valuable, unreproducible data into Facebook? If they re-install your app then they will probably be pretty happy to enter everything all over again.

"Are you sick of emails that say 'thanks' or 'sounds great' and other pointless ones that you really didn't need to read?"

I never want to work with anybody that has that attitude. You don't have to time even READ (let alone politely respond to) a "thank you?" But, I bet you have plenty of time to read and respond to everything on digg, reddit, slashdot, news.yc, and facebook.

If I find your application useless then I don't want you to retain any information about me.

I don't know your business too well, but I would be really surprised if that was the motivation for your customers. Most business people are trying to improve productivity in their main business to improve their main business, not make time for a second business. Plus, why would somebody looking to start a startup spend money on expensive software--wouldn't they save their money to invest in the startup?

I have trouble envisioning a stream that is not slow and meandering. When a stream becomes fast, people stop calling it a stream.

Your customers are boring people. You would be better served with a boring logo.

Don't use purple unless you want a strong association with Sun Microsystems. The Favicon doesn't match the logo. The website looks like a weblog--that is not a good thing.

Honestly, there are a lot of problems with the site design. I am not a designer so I can't offer anything constructive. You need some professional help.